Fray: Tales of the Slayer
by higherground
Summary: Melaka Fray wants to know more about who and what she is. She wants to know more about The Slayer. And when other forces start messing with her, she's about to find answers. PLEASE READ AND REVIEW, IN DETAIL!
1. Chapter 1

Melaka Fray tried her absolute best not to nod off. This had been her routine for the past couple of weeks. For when her eyes were closed she feared that she would see what she had seen before…yet was never supposed to. Hear what she had heard. Smell what she had…you get the drift. She didn't want what happened before when she closed to her eyes to happen again.

The feeling that it gave her was so potent. It was an urge, a…roar she had thought…a hunger rising. This was a familiar feeling, but this time was different. Because this feeling…she was never supposed to feel.

"Have you not slept?"

Melaka looked to her right and discovered her older sister Erin had awoken from her sleep.

"Did I jir you?" sad Melaka.

"By doing what? Brooding?" Erin replied.

"You know why I can't knock." Melaka said.

Erin looked her sister in the face very seriously, in a very big sister-ish sort of way. "Mel, I spent wad on these plane tickets because I wanted you to relax for once!"

"Erin, you bought these tickets because you told me if I didn't get on this plane you'd turn in my warrants."

"That was all just toy, Mel, you know that." Erin said smirking. "I couldn't let you hitch all the way to Brit."

"I could have handled it, Er."

"I know. But you need this time away. You haven't been away from Haddyn since…well, never. And neither have I."

"This isn't a vaca, Erin," Melaka said as she looked out of the window. "You know why I have to do this."

"I know. Look," Erin grabbed her sister's shoulder and looked her squarely in the face. "As much as you assume that I don't understand…I do. I really do."

"Thanks, Er, but truthfully you could never grip this. Never."

Though she began to feel bad when her sisters eyes dropped, Melaka knew what she had said was true. Erin would never be able to understand, never be able to comprehend what it was like to be Chosen, to be the only one in the entire world to wield the strength and skill.

"The Slayer." Melaka winced as she remembered that one word from an unexpected dream she had been having, one of a few over the past month or so. What was even more unexpected was the familiar person who spoke the word. The word came out of the mouth of Buffy Summers, the Slayer who died nearly 200 years ago whom Melaka had met and fought only a few months ago. What was even more unexpected was the realness of the dream. Melaka thought, '_what was so special about this dream? Well, I mean, it's not that I dream often. Especially __those__ dreams.' _But yet she had still figured it was simply a dream. However, it and the ones that came after it were so real. So real, in fact, that they felt like memories, the kind of memories where you can nearly smell familiarity.

Melaka, decided to remind herself as to why she was on this plane on the way to the other side of the world…('_was it on the other side of the world?'_). She took herself back into the dream. Surrounded by sand, the feeling that it gave her was so potent. It was an urge, a…roar she had thought…a hunger rising. This was a familiar feeling, but this time was different. Because this feeling…she was never supposed to feel.

Then suddenly, standing before her was the thing that she had stared at for hours in the Watcher's Diaries she found in her flat. _'Sineya'_, she thought. Her name had been lost for centuries upon centuries, and add a couple of decades to that. Melaka had searched hard and long through every journal she could get her hands on to find the name of whom the Watchers called, "The Primitive." Sineya stared with an animalistic snarl at Melaka. Suddenly, pain shot into Melaka's heart, and a sudden wave of shock that she had hated, especially because she knew what was coming. Standing a few feet away from Melaka was Loo, the little girl who had practically been her only friend until she was murdered. Melaka forced herself to look Loo's way.

"You're…you're not here," Melaka whispered.

"I was borrowed," said Loo, in a tone of voice that Melaka did not remember. "Someone has to speak for it."

"She can't speak…?"

"You know that it can't speak," Loo says to Melaka in a blank stare.

"She."

"Not your call. Never was," Loo said while Melaka just looked at her.

Suddenly, Melaka looked ahead and in front of her stood a very slim woman with long blonde hair wearing a flowing pink dress. Melaka stared at Buffy Summers.

"Why do you follow me?" says Buffy.

"I don't…" says both Melaka and Loo, simultaneously while Mel looks at Loo after the fact, confounded.

"…know," Mel continues. "You weren't talking to me, were you, Summers?"

"Where are my friends?" Buffy questions

"You're asking the wrong questions," says Loo to Buffy. "You're not asking any, at all." Loo says to Melaka, this time.

The First Slayer stands and looks Melaka in the face while Loo speaks, "I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction."

"Absolute ... alone," Mel says along with Loo.

"The Slayer," declares Buffy.

"I know this. Why do I know this?" Melaka questions, herself.

Loo walks up to Melaka and grabs her hand while Melaka looks down at her. "Things are moving," Loo says, "The players are being set. No more pawns. That board was wiped out long ago; however, a few pieces still remain. This is the time of _your _life. This is the time."

Melaka decided to try something she hadn't before; She decided to take this "dream" into her own hands. "Loo, I still don't understand. This" Melaka shouts as she waves her hands about. "…is not supposed to happen to me! I'm not supposed to have these dreams! The memories! I never have. They belong to Harth…they belonged to my brother."

"The answers to the riddles will be given in time," says Loo. "Good-bye, Picadilly. Farewell, Leicester-bloody-Square. This is the time. "

"Mel!" Melaka awoke from her sleep with a jolt as her sister stared at her.

"You started snoring, Mel. Jirring the neighbors," said Erin. "By the way, we're almost to land in Brit. Do you have the maps and everything?"

"In my duff, in the cabinet above."

"So…you know where we're going?"

"The last diary of Gates gives the address to where we're going."

"Good, I'm glad," says Erin. "I hope you find the answers you're looking for."

"Me, too," says Melaka.


	2. Chapter 2

_He kissed me._

Melaka shuddered as the memory of her brother's cruel kiss crept across her mind as she and her sister took the hover cab to Dornum, which was farm country in Brit. It took Melaka a long while to adapt herself to the fact that that her mortal (or rather immortal) enemy was the one person whose death she had grieved for so many years now; her twin brother, Harth. He was, in a sense, master of the vampires in Haddyn, a Chosen One in his own right, chosen to do the exact opposite of what Melaka had been called to do. Born of the same flesh, they were each other's natural enemies. The one person that Mel had loved the most wanted to kill her, and she accepted the fact that she had to want the same thing. So for months she and her sister followed every trail that they could to find Harth, but each time they came up empty.

And now here she was, nineteen years old, and somewhat confused about what she had to do next with her life. Melaka's life wasn't like Buffy's, who was called "The Slayer of all Slayers," where she had an entire network of friends who helped her out with her slayage. It wasn't even like the First Slayer's where all she knew to do was to kill demons. Melaka's life was entirely different, because the world had changed in the last two-hundred years. The last dregs of magick were nearly gone. Religion was nearly extinct. All that now existed were fanatics, those who believed in the second comings of their various gods. Some waited for the return of the Christ, others for the return of Vishnu, and so many other religious fanatics who waited for their own personal savior's return. The only group who had gotten their wish was the Council of Watchers. And they were too busy setting themselves on fire to even care anymore.

This was why Melaka decided to travel all the way to Brit (England in Ol' Merican). She had read about Gates, the last Great Watcher who died in the Battle of Starbucks. In one of the only diaries she found of Gates', she read that the bulk of his journals were at his old home in what used to be known as Bristol, England. Something told her (and yes, literally, some_thing_ told her) that in those diaries is where she would find the answers she needed. Her older sister, Erin, refused to let her find her own way to Brit so she blew a hella rub on plane tickets to get there.

"You better believe I'm going with you," Erin said pleasantly as she set a plate of warm bagels on her dining table. Melaka looked up in alarm; eyebrows raised and mouth hanging somewhat open. Melaka and Erin had never done a family thing together. They'd barely ever spoken until they decided to work together to find and stop Harth.

"Um, what?" Melaka slowly said, pouring herself a glass of unfrozen juice. "Not that I'm not grateful, Erin, it's slam, but…you and I don't have a history of warm happy fuzzies. Or you know, much of a history at all from the past six or seven years. So…why?"

"We're family, Mel," Erin replied, shaking some of her long, ash-blonde hair away from her shoulders. "Sisters. And we're all the other has. I really think we need to bond more. Especially with Harth being all – you know." Erin brought her hands up and curled them and scrunching up her face growled, "Grr. Argh."

"With him being a a vampire. It's not a bad word, Erin, you can use it." It had taken Melaka a while herself to begin using the word vampire from Ol' Merican, she decided that "lurk" was an incorrect term describing people who were infected by what society came to view as "mutants." "Vampire" was the correct name to use for her bloodsucking sworn enemies.

"I know, but it's just so difficult. I mean, when I saw him…all pale, and so small…just like he'd been when he went missing. It's so hard to believe. And you -"

"Can take care of myself, Erin," Melaka replied. "I'm not like the other girls. I don't have the visions or the dreams; I barely know anything about the legacy. Harth knows all that. I really fig that somehow that will give me the edge I need."

"I hope so, Mel."

"So, when do we leave?"

"This weekend."

"Oh. So, you ever been before? Is it anything like Haddyn?"

"No, but I heard it's very beautiful. Hotspot for bad blood as of late. Maybe even some lurks."

"Oh, a working vacation. I can hardly wait." Melaka said dryly.

"I hope you consider this trip more than just a-a "Slayer" thing. To get away from Haddyn, Harth, and everything else. Just you and me, getting a breather.

"Could be fun."

"We both need it."

"How long can you get away?"

"For a couple of weeks. What about you?"

"Not ployed by anyone to do any grabbing, and since I'm Watcher-less and fancy free…"

"So it's settled then."

"Looks like."

Erin smiled, pleased. She didn't really need to get away from anything here in Haddyn. Not as badly as Melaka did anyway. But she did want a strong bond between herself and Melaka. They were all the family each other had left, not counting a psycho-vampiric brother. Besides, with Melaka's new role in life, who knew when Melaka would be gone for good?

"So, what else is going on with you, sis?" Erin asked pleasantly. Melaka shrugged and smiled a tiny, sweet smile. Maybe Erin was right in saying that they had to get closer. And maybe this was the way to do it.

Maybe this was the way for her to start a semi-normal life.

Melaka and her sister decided to drop their bags off at the hotel they were staying at. Apparently, Erin had been doing some kick ass work with the laws and earning heavy rub. Melaka felt very weird, although appreciative, mostly because she hadn't been given this much leisure since their parents died which was a tote long way ago.

They took the hover cab to the farm country and walked around for a little while, taking in the scenery.

"Wow. Just…what?" Melaka said as she stared at the mass amounts of grass that covered the landscapes ahead.

"Right there with ya. Tote different from all the steel, smog, and…well steel and smog we see all the time," says Erin.

"The house should be a few blocks away," Mel said as she pulled Gates' diary out of her duff. "Yeah, we're near."

"So Mel, what do you plan on doing when we get to this house?"

"You know what I plan on doing, Er."

"I know, going through the diaries, learning whatever it is you need to learn. But where do you plan on going from there?"

From Melaka's silence, Erin could tell that she didn't know the answer to that question. "You're hoping that the books will tell you?"

"Sums up," Fray says in a sigh.

However, Erin stops abruptly in at a dead end, because in front of them is nothing but grass, but she notices that Melaka is no longer next to her and has gone beyond the decrepit fence.

"Mel, where are you going?"

"What do you mean, where am I going? In the house."

"What…what house?" Erin says, very confused.

"Are you…are you completely spazzed?"

"Mel, there is no house there."

However, in Melaka's eyes there was. A very warm, homey flat appeared before her eyes. She felt like a little girl when she saw the horses roaming around the property, eating grass. "You really can't see this house?"

"No, Mel, I can't….oh."

"What oh?"

"Must be a Slayer thing, again, huh?"

"That's toy," says Mel, "Fuck this."

Melaka walks away from the house and hops over a horse that attempts to get in her way, and another…and another. "What the fuck is going on?"

"That's exactly what I'm wondering. Mel what are you doing?"

"Hitting it. This is complete spin."

"Mel, you came here for a reason!"

"And what's the purpose if you can't even see it, and I can't? Wait, I have that answer…just another mysterious Slayer thing. I can't do this right now, I have the urge."

"Mel, you can't run away from this because you're nervous or scared, or whatever it is you're feeling."

"Not now, Erin. I'm gonna go do the only thing I can do."

Suddenly, as she watched her sister Melaka walk away, Erin felt hot breath trickle down the back of her head. She turned her head slowly and jumped back a few feet and saw a horse standing behind her. Suddenly she saw not one, but two, three…a whole pack of them. And there it was…the house.

Melaka walked away trying to remove Erin's words of nervous and scared from her head. She wanted to hit something, to make something hurt…to slay. Suddenly, like a thief in the night a memory from one of those crappy ass dreams popped in her head. A voice softly saying, "You think you know. What you are, what's to come, you haven't even begun."

"You couldn't be more wrong, Loo."

Unbeknownst to her, someone had been watching her since she arrived in Brit. A figure cloaked in the shadows watched over the Slayer. He stood just far enough away so that he was out of the Slayer's vampire radar. He knew that she didn't have the mental senses but her body could tell her that he was near. He knew this, because he knows a lot about Slayers.

He had gathered information from…well beat information out of the Watchers and discovered that the Slayer had been called in the States. He had to be very careful not to let his presence be known to this Slayer until he was ready for it to be known. The problem was that he knew that the moment she knew what he was she would attempt to throttle him…and he couldn't be more excited about that. Though there were more pressing matters at hand, he couldn't resist going one on one with this bird. Spike hadn't had that trill in over 200 years.


End file.
